Peas and
Queues
‘Remember your Ps and Q,’ was a common
reminder to children when I was growing up. I wonder if today’s children
receive the same advice and if they then regard it with consternation or
curiosity.’
‘Remember your peas’ – does that
mean I have to remember to eat them, to grow them, to cook them, to buy them? I
don’t like peas – do I still have to remember them?
‘Remember your queues’ – does that
mean don’t push into the queue but line up nicely, joining the queue at the
back and ‘waiting your turn,’?
I don’t suppose they learn the
little verse I was taught as a child and which I have attempted to teach to
generations of children unfortunate enough to pass under my teacherly gaze:
There’s
a magic little word
That
works wonders when it’s heard
Though
it sometimes seems to lose itself with ease,
But
there’s such a charm about it
That
we cannot do without it
And
that magic little word is only
PLEASE.
Ahh, sweetJ
I sometimes wonder if manners are ever taught to children. An item
in the morning news astounded me. A school in England has banned the provision
of triangular flapjacks because the points are too sharp! A boy was hurt during
a food fight when a triangular flapjack hit him in the face causing injury
sufficient for him to be taken to hospital for treatment. The food fight took
place in the school canteen.
Several thoughts occurred to me simultaneously,
some of them unrepeatable, chief among which was, ‘Whatever happened to common
sense?’ Surely the primary objective should be to address the poor behaviour of
children supposedly eating on school premises. Does no-one supervise these
children and tell them that throwing food is unacceptable and that the food is
there to be eaten, not used as a missile in gang warfare? (I must here confess that when I was at school the shortbread
occasionally served to us was so hard it bounced when ‘dropped’ on the floor –
but we threw it at the floor, not at each other!)
I wonder how long it will be before pens, pencils, rulers,
scissors are all banished from schools because they are too dangerous. Wax
crayons, too, should be removed from infant classrooms – I had two little boys in
one class who on the same morning stuffed crayons into their noses. One boy was
lucky – the crayon was ejected naturally. I had to take the other child to his
doctor! No lasting harm was done.
And now manners dictate that I must apologise to my faithful
followers because I have not responded to your comments. You may remember that
my granddaughter, Marnie, was having a troublesome pregnancy and Dorothy, my
elderly mother-in-law, was going into occasional hibernation. Marnie’s baby was born on 12th
March, fit and well and beautiful, naturally, though I have yet to see her in
the flesh. A week later, on 19th March it was Dorothy’s 96th
birthday. She was suffering from pneumonia and died a day later. Her passing
was a relief to us all, not least to Dorothy herself – the person she was had
departed many years ago and the stranger in her place was unpredictable and
difficult. The funeral is at the beginning of April.
Meanwhile, Barry’s brother
is undergoing a third round of chemotherapy, so all in all both Barry and I have
been somewhat ‘scattered.’ My resolve to be a better blogger in 2013 has not
been honoured but I hope things will return to a more normal state of affairs
and my concentration will improve and I shall be able to visit your blogs more
regularly. I plan also to try and finish at least one of the books I’m writing.
As for the kittens . . . more to follow laterJ (News, that
is, not kittens . . . )
